The Effect of R&D Growth on Employment and Self-Employment in Local Labour Markets

Tommaso Ciarli, Alberto Marzucchi, Edgar Salgado () and Maria Savona ()
Additional contact information
Edgar Salgado: SPRU, University of Sussex
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Edgar Salgado Chavez and Edgar Salgado

SPRU Working Paper Series from SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School

Abstract: The paper investigates the effects of firms’ investment in Research and Development (R&D) on employment dynamics in the British local labour markets (Travel to Work Areas). We distinguish between local areas characterised by the initial level of routinised employment of the workforce. We implement a instrumenting strategy to address endogeneity issues in the relation between innovation and employment. Our results suggest that increases in R&D investments mainly affect routinised areas, where the employment created is low skilled, concentrated in non-tradable sectors (like transport, construction) and services. A significant share of the jobs created is self-employment, concentrated in the 25-34 age cohort. We qualify the effect of R&D on self-employment by looking at local firms’ dynamics, which suggest that the increase in self-employment is reflected in a higher number of micro-firms. Rather, in non-routinized areas, R&D results in the expected increase in the demand of high-skilled workers and a reduced demand of low-skill employment.

Keywords: Innovation; R&D investments; Employment; Self-employment; Local Labour Markets; Routinisation; Skills (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D3 J24 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-ino, nep-lma, nep-sbm, nep-tid and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php? ... li-et-al.pdf&site=25 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sru:ssewps:2018-08

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in SPRU Working Paper Series from SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by University of Sussex Business School Communications Team ().